LinkedIn has become a critical platform for B2B communications.
The leading social networking platform for business people turned 20-years-old in 2023, yet despite being a relatively mature platform, it is still growing at an impressive rate. The last numbers released by LinkedIn show 930 million members, and at the current growth rate, they will smash through the one billion member mark before we next sing Auld Lang Syne.
This article explains how to increase awareness, familiarity, trust and interest and ultimately revenue by using a people-shaped communications strategy.
Attention:
People pay far more attention to the personable content from other people than the corporate content posted by companies.
Social media platforms were built to enable people to connect with other people, so it will come as no surprise to you to hear that in the vast majority of studies we found that the personable content from people gets far more attention than the corporate content posted by companies.
If LinkedIn were a news site, YOU are the content, and your company is the advertising. When you consider that the average dwell time on a news page can be 240 seconds, and standard IAB advertising formats achieve just 1.2 seconds of attention, you can see why you might rather be the content than the advertising.
Engagement:
People will nearly always get more attention than companies, and that, more often than not, will lead to more engagement.
Here's a real-life case study to show what's possible when you put your senior, client-facing people at the front of your communications on LinkedIn.
Case study: Advertising agency.
At Six Sells we work with a very well known advertising executive, and ghostwrite personable content for him. He works at a hugely famous advertising agency, and their company page on LinkedIn has a huge following.
We looked at the average engagement of his personable content, and compared it to the average engagement of the company page content on LinkedIn.
Here's what we found:
Likes = Exec got 1,644% more likes than company page
Comments = Exec got 1,014% more comments than company page
Reposts = Exec got 812% more reports than company page
People pay more attention to other people - it's a human thing!
Touchpoints:
Automated email is often the go-to tool to increase the number of sales and marketing touch-points between seller and buyer, but email inboxes are crowded places, with more and more 'spray-and-pray' emails landing every hour.
The email inbox is also a 'doing' tool - it's where people go to get stuff done, and manage comms with clients, colleagues and partners. People rarely get 5 minutes spare, let alone finding time to pop into their SPAM folder to read anything.
They do however visit their LinkedIn newsfeed, often multiple times a day, to read something new. When scrolling their newsfeed people are alert, in a work mindset, and actively looking for something entertaining or interesting - why wouldn't you give them that!? If your people are not in their newsfeed, that is a huge wasted opportunity to be visible and communicate.
Results:
Check out the recommendations on my LinkedIn profile to see what some of our clients have said about our results.
Here's a few of my favourites:
Adtech seller: "I am a massive football fan, so one of my favourite stories from a client is when a Premier League Football Club got in touch with them as a direct result of the content we had ghostwritten for him. He wasn't looking to target football clubs, and hadn't even considered targeting them, yet he signed a six figure deal with them because he was active in the newsfeed with interesting content."
Adtech seller: "Our client talks about "new business from clients I'd never have thought to approach - who DM'd me on LinkedIn and mentioned posts Six Sells had written for me".
Ad network sales: "I managed to win a six-figure client deal, with a large technology company, by following the Six Sells identify, connect and engage model".
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Six Sells is a B2B communications agency for sales and marketing leaders.
We help your client-facing people to speak to more of your ideal clients, more often, via social media and personable content.
We offer training, consulting or done-for-you services, which increase the awareness, familiarity, trust and interest in your company and its products and services.
Email hello@sixsells.co.uk for more information.
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